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Psychedelic Women
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© 2025 Rainbow Valentine
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Producer/Host, Rainbow Valentine was born into the inner circle of the San Francisco counterculture which didn’t seem unusual until she grew up and discovered not everyone’s family and friends were pot smugglers, rock stars and artists activating for peace, justice and equality. Rainbow Valentine’s mom, her friend’s moms and her mom’s friends were the bedrock of the world famous 1960’s counterculture - they were the first women in history to have access to (and take advantage of) The Pill, LSD and Rock’n’Roll. Psychedelic Women: Conversations with the Women of the Counterculture reveals never-before recorded stories of the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll of the paradigm-shifting 1960’s American counterculture.
26 Episodes
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Don’t everyone’s parents have smuggler friends who disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle? In the subculture host, Rainbow Valentine grew up in, yes, but the rest of the world, maybe not. And because of this, RV shares ho-hum lunch convos with her and her former pot-smuggler counterculture parents from the podcast, Disorganized Crime. In this trio of Lunch with the Lemurs, RV's parents tell us true stories of missing smugglers, a power-crystal shaman, a San Francisco smuggler soiree, the most infamous Mill Valley cop of the 80’s, plus RV’s dad’s love of Costco, the hippie
kid’s carob conundrum and that time RV’s parents took LSD and mistakenly went hot-tubbing with a motorcycle gang.
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Before she was a 17 year old groundfloor member of the 1960's San Francisco counterculture, Rosie McGee was the child of French Holocaust survivors who, after WW2, flipped a coin on where to emigrate and as Rosie says, “I won” because San Francisco in the early 60’s was a city of beatniks melding into hippies – the perfect place for a teenage detective to become a psychedelic woman. Before she wrote her memoir, Dancing with the Dead, Rosie McGee was Florence Nathan, a naïve, theater enthusiast who lived a double life, secret from her conservative French parents who had no idea their daughter’s job with Big Daddy Tom Donahue would lead her into the arms of comedian, Lenny Bruce, Grateful Dead bassist, Phil Lesh and to the Far East with the SF counterculture’s most infamous smuggler. This episode unpacks true stories of the Muir Beach Acid Test, the Human Be In, Janis Joplin, The Coffee Gallery, The Committee, the Warlocks and more.
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“You can smuggle anything except for drugs and guns…” These were the rules laid down by a Brazilian beauty queen to her Uraguyan Jewish husband, who smuggled everything from hi-fis to Hindus. In this episode of Smuggler Family Album, host Rainbow Valentine chats with her Brazilian drummer friend, Pedro Strasser, whose father (also named Pedro) was a smuggler during the Brazilian dictatorship of the 1970s and 80s. Everyone in the counterculture smuggler scene or those interested in the smugglers of yore, will relate to/be fascinated by Pedro Jr.’s memories of his scrappy smuggler dad’s innovative creativity and entrepreneurial spirit as he moved everything but drugs and guns, in his handmade yacht, in order to support his wife, kids and art.
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In this bonus episode host, Rainbow Valentine, continues to put the psychedelic puzzle pieces of her culture together as Dr. Maria Mangini, PHD, co-founder of the Women’s Visionary Congress, nurse practitioner and psychedelic historian, tells RV and listeners about her friendship with Nicky Scully, subject of Episode 10 and takes us down some serious counterculture rabbit holes. Topics include insider Grateful Dead trivia, Timothy Leary, the Emerald Tablets movement, Goldfinger the smuggler, Esalen, Millbrook, Fred and Bill Wahpepah, the Sundance Ceremony, a gem called the Seva Diamond, a secret room stuffed with psychedelic goodies, women’s colleges and the Academy Award winner in Dr. Maria's theater program and much more…
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Cults! Kidnapping! Concubines! This epic bonus episode of the Radiate story (Eps 1 - 6) with Rainbow Valentine and her Zelig artist mom, Kathy Mason Lerner aka the Astrologer’s Daughter, gets into RV’s mom’s life before she gave her signature fur hat to Janis Joplin. True stories of RV’s mom’s godparents who were California Bohemians of the 1930s, 40’s and 50’s,
astrologers and friends with Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and their secret girlfriend. Plus, we learn about RV’s Grandma Kitty’s secret girlfriend (who was a psychic), the esoteric cults Grandma Kitty was into and RV’s mom’s friendships with musician Richie Valens (La Bamba) and racecar driver Donnie “the Snake” Prudhomme (the first driver to go 140 mph). This juicy
prequel to Radiate Ep 1 ends with new details about Sam Gee’s murder, his courtesan mother and the Wobblies. If you’re into revolutionary art, artists and revolutionaries... this is for you.
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How many counterculture brides can say that Janis Joplin sang at their wedding? At least one and her name is Nicki Scully and host, Rainbow Valentine’s mom made her wedding rings. Shamanic healer, Nicki Scully was an LSD-taking teenager who arrived in San Francisco during the 1967 Summer of Love, where she met and married Goldfinger, the infamous, one-handed smuggler who kept Nicki doped up and in a gilded cage before she left him for one of the managers of the Grateful Dead. In this gritty episode, Nicky Scully shares dark stories about surviving relationships with famous counterculture men, which gave her the tools to becoming a healer. Along with Nicki's stories, Rainbow Valentine gets into the history of women’s shelters, abortion laws in America and Janis Joplin’s veterinarian… plus that time Nicki took LSD and delivered a baby without midwifery training, let alone the internet. If you like counterculture history don’t miss the trippy true stories shared by Grateful Dead family member/shamanic healer, Nicki Scully.
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What do you call a deranged smuggler who asks you to stash a brick of gold
under your pillow for 6 months? A friend or an acquaintance? Rainbow Valentine’s mom’s art patron, Goldfinger, was a one-handed smuggler who regularly moved thousands of pounds of hashish from Lebanon to the US before being busted by the CIA, which only turned him into a fugitive. Goldfinger was a bigger-than-life real outlaw in the SF counterculture scene of the 1960’s and 70’s...but then he disappeared in the 1980’s; everyone assumed he was dead but none of the psychedelic pioneers knew how he died.
The second part of the saga of Goldfinger reveals brand new, never-before-heard information about the notorious, one-handed, counterculture
smuggler, including details on his outlaw life in Europe, how he died and the
major secret he kept from everyone in the SF counterculture scene; never
revealed… until this episode.
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When your parents tell you about a real one-handed smuggler
named Goldfinger who lost his hand in a smuggling trip gone wrong, there’s only one thing to do: dive deeper. In The True Saga of Goldginger Part 1, Rainbow Valentine talks to psychedelic woman/counterculture, groundfloor member, Raechel Donahue (wife of Big Daddy Tom Donahue), about Goldfinger - the larger-than-life, counterculture smuggler who disappeared in the 1980’s and may or may not be dead… Raechel reveals all she remembers about the unhinged outlaw who traveled everywhere (including court) with a duffle bag-chemistry lab and eventually became a fugitive after running over a movie star’s kid, smuggling thousands of pounds of illegal drugs and being taken down by the CIA and Lebanese airforce.
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A lo-fi, stripped-down convo with Rainbow Valentine and Dr. Maria Mangini, PHD, co-founder of the Women’s Visionary Congress, Hog Farm Member & psychedelic historian. RV and Dr. M talk about the true stories in Eps 5, 8, 9 and Bonus ep 2, including RV’s mom’s shocking revelation about Dizzy
Gillespie, human trafficking, teenage hysteria of Beatlemania, the Lovin'
Spoonful’s pot bust, peyote, the Medicine Ball Caravan, creative hiding places for illegal drugs and more.
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Don’t everyone’s parents small-talk about MDA chemists
bleeding out while fine dining or argue about which LSD chemist had a live/work space in a defunct nuclear silo and reminisce about a one-handed, fugitive smuggler named Goldfinger? If you grew up with the psychedelic pioneers of SF’s 1960’s like Rainbow Valentine, then yes, probably during breakfast your elders can harken back to that big Lebanese hash deal brought down by the CIA in 1967 or tell you about the Orange Sunshine LSD chemist's funeral ; but if you didn’t grow up in the inner circle of the counterculture, you get to be a fly on the wall as Rainbow Valentine hears true tales of High Society aka the counterculture outlaws of yesteryear who paved the way for listeners to pop an adult gummy, roll a doobie and stream this episode.
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Can you imagine process-serving the Beatles? Raechel Donahue, SF's acid-rock radio pioneer, was a psychedelic second away from doing just that because she and her husband, Big Daddy Tom Donahue, produced the Beatles very last concert in North America and it didn’t go quite as planned. And that’s just the first 5 minutes of this episode which includes Raechel’s life in swinging 60’s London where it was common to see Led Zepplin hitchhiking, the Rolling Stones buying baby clothes and smuggling pot in Pampers was routine. And have you ever heard of the Medicine Ball Caravan aka Woodstock on Wheels? Produced by Tom and Raechel Donahue, who tells us about the epic roadtrip documentary (edited by a young Marty Scorsese) that took 150 hippies and rock stars across 1970’s America to play psychedelic music festivals in small red towns. Plus, we learn he history of Frito chips and hear stories about the Record Plant, Sly Stone, Trident Studios, a psychedelic wedding at the Jefferson Airplane’s mansion and a psychedelic funeral...all told to us by Raechel Donahue, the Anne Frank of Rock'n'Roll, as Big Daddy Tom Donahue called her.
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Imagine life without free radio. If you lived in America before 1967, that was reality… there were no free radio stations until a group of misfit artist visionaries high on LSD decided to recreate their psychedelic record parties onto the airwaves. In this episode, RV talks to her mom’s pal, Raechel Donahue - the pioneering woman who trained and employed the first women in America to be radio engineers and DJs and turned free acid rock radio a reality called KMPX (precursor to KSAN). Raechel Donahue, DJ, filmmaker, voiceover actor, wife and widow of Big Daddy Tom Donahue, tells us about San Francisco beatnik life before it morphed into hippies. Stories about her adventures bellydancing, go-go dancing, modeling for a gay Holocaust refugee who invented the thong bikini and how horse racing, LSD and Tourette’s syndrome led to the birth of rock radio in America and the greedy corporate overlords who tried to squish them.
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Part 2 of a deep dive into Radiate episodes 4, 5 and 6 with RV and Dr. Maria Mangini, PHD, co-founder of the Women’s Visionary Council, nurse practitioner and member of the Hog Farm Commune. Be a psychedelic fly on the wall as Dr. M tells RV the story of the Wild West Festival, an epic failure of a music
festival that was supposed to be the West Coast counterpoint to Woodstock, plus the physiology of women’s fertility, the origins of San Francisco’s
Carousel Ballroom, the Fillmore West, Winterland, the counterculture’s response to anti-dancing laws in San Francisco in the 1960’s and more.
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Part 1 of a deep dive into Radiate episodes 4, 5 and 6 with RV and Dr. Maria Mangini, PHD, co-founder of the Women’s Visionary Council and member of the Hog Farm Commune. Listeners get to be a psychedelic fly on the wall as RV and Dr. M discuss the Grateful Dead’s origins, the downfall of the Quicksilver, the history of women in radio aka KMPX’s chick engineers plus an insider’s story of San Francisco’s epic failure of a music festival that was supposed to be the West Coast counterpoint to Woodstock and much more.
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In a very intimate bonus episode to the Radiate story, RV’s mom shares what she calls “the gritty stuff”, revealing never-before-heard, shocking revelations about her marriage to mid-century modern jeweler/drug dealer to the Jazz greats, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis… Plus a teenage bullrider, a thief named Crazy Sal, murder and more. Pull up a pot bale seat at the Anonymous Artist’s table where in the 1960's, the inner circle of the counterculture drank coffee and rolled joints as they created the art, music and culture that caught the attention of the entire world.... Peace, love and rock'n'roll came from somewhere and RV's mom spills the beans on just exactly what was happening at that somewhere: the groundfloor of the San Francisco counterculture.
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A deep dive into Radiate Eps 1, 2, 3 with RV and Dr. Maria Mangini, PHD, co-founder of the Women’s Visionary Council and member of the Hog Farm Commune. In an intimate After-the-Episode Chat, RV and Dr. M. discuss the Hippie Family Tree, the Haight Ashbury, The Diggers, hippie kids, outlaws, rock stars, Margo St. James, Carol Doda, the Domino Club, San Francisco’s laws around nudity onstage and dancing, plus the SF politics that led to the downfall of the SF counterculture, race relations during SF’s Summer of Love and the Nazi scientist responsible for the largest nuclear meltdown in America – still contaminating the mountains north of Los Angeles, CA...
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In behind-the scenes convos with her former pot-smuggler parents, Rainbow Valentine takes a walk down counterculture memory lane with stories about beat poets, Lawrence Ferlinghetti & Alan Ginsberg, obscenity trials and banned books plus dining with smugglers, counterculture chemists, an airplane full of LSD VIPS, the history of Marin County, California’s sushi and an unsolved murder in the high end restaurant world of 1980’s San Francisco.
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In a new branch of Psychedelic Women, Rainbow Valentine presents Smuggler Family Album, conversations with her counterculture smuggler friends and family. In this episode RV’s parents (from the podcast Disorganized Crime) tell us about Juanita, a shit-talking restaurateur/brothel owner with a wild west heart of gold who ran her infamous restaurant from her bed; plus stories about the people and places of RV’s childhood in Sausalito and Mill Valley, California in the 70’s and 80’s, where it was estimated that 50% of the population were drug smugglers.
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In the final non-bonus episode of RV's mom's story, Psychedelic wisdom galore is dropped as Kathy Mason Lerner dishes more trippy stories from her decade on the groundfloor of the world-famous San Francisco counterculture between 1960 – 1970. True stories about the Beatles, Joan Baez, the CIA, the Charlatans, Stoneground, Altamont, the Avalon, the Jefferson Airplane, Howard Hesseman, a trip-to-Hawaii-gone-awry with the Quicksilver Messenger Service, the ongoing battle of good and evil and downfall of the scene; plus, how psychedelics, Big Sur and a VW bus full of redwood led to the birth of host/creator, Rainbow Valentine.
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On June 12th, 1943, Susi Ramstein became the very first woman on planet earth to take LSD and she took the tram home (while tripping). To commemorate Susie Ramstein’s tenacity, the world’s leading women-centric psychedelic organization, the Women’s Visionary Council, launched a new psychedelic holiday: Tram Day! In this episode (which drops on Tram Day) Rainbow Valentine talks to psychedelic historian, Dr. Maria Mangini, PHD and Swiss psychedelic researcher, Susanne Seiler, who uncovered the fascinating history of the Psychedelic Eve aka Susi Ramstein. Discover and celebrate the courage represented by Tram Day by listening to true stories about Albert Hoffman, ergotomine tartrate, Nazis, Sandoz Labs, Novartis Labs, Swiss aristocracy and the very first woman on planet earth to take LSD.
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